[Week 4] – Maleton3’s Guest Review

[ROM][5.1.1][AOSP] OmniROM (2015.06.14 build)

About the ROM

Beautiful, simplistic, sleek. All words that come to mind when I think of the new Sports illustrated issue. After all what man can resist Kate Upton? Well, according to my sponsors (of which I have none) I can’t talk about Kate Upton (damn). Well I guess that leaves us with something second best to Kate, OmniROM!

OmniROM is an AOSP ROM, but this does not leave it without a few tricks up its sleeve (Which I will be getting too eventually). OmniROM is often hailed as being the “Open” ROM…well…wouldn’t every ROM be “Open”? I mean, it is in the name: Android OPEN source project. Well, this isn’t Open in that sense. Omni is special and I believe they actually have a tactic that might even rival that of Apples. What tactic do you ask? Listen to the users (and judging by my recent appointment at the Apple genius bar, Apple still haven’t got that down. Omni has though). You found a bug in the newest source? Report it! They are happy to receive your feedback! Want a new feature? Add it! It is up to you to see OmniROM as you want it made!

On top of that, yes, somehow ladies and gentleman it gets better! I dare to say not even my beloved swimsuit edition of sports illustrated can top this. NIGHTLY UPDATES. We are not talking about those..once a week Nightly updates, this is literally every night. Omni doesn’t waste time though, no “minor bug fixes” as there is always something added! Each update is like another big update, always striving for a better ROM! Now let us get onto the actual review! (More Kate Upton to be referenced!)

Features and UI

Before we dive right into the features, let me just give a brief disclaimer: This is an AOSP ROM, it will not have dozens of features but this does not stop it from being a great ROM.

Just look at the size of those….uh…icons, yeah that’s what I was going to say…not…anything related to…uh…anyway!

OmniROM is one of the more features rich AOSP ROM’s I have seen in a while. To start off there is the always beloved OmniSwitch. This replaces the recent tab with a neat package. Swiping from the side of your screen brings up a toolbar containing all your recently opened apps. You can use this to switch between and close all your apps! It works fairly well and is convenient for multi tasking while in apps!

Next Up? Well, this won’t sound like a big deal to many of you out there but for me it is a HUGE deal. Active display! Your notifications turn on the screen in a blacked out manner. This shows what you need, at a glance without having to type in your PIN or whatever you need to do. It may seem like a minor feature and it is, but for many of us, it’s the small stuff that is important!

Next we have gestures, you should all be familiar with these. Double tap to wake, V for flashlight etc, etc. This is a pleasure to see on Omni to know that when I am falling down my stairs to get to my fridge at night..I can draw a V and see all my Doritos. Now onto UI!

Oh yeah baby…swipe faster…let me see your micro usb port.

OmniROM falls a bit short in the UI Department here. It was not the fastest UI and did not add anything to the experience but it was not bad. UI is a special section and everyone wants something different. For me, unfortunately, there really wasn’t enough. A theme engine would have been nice, considering I do love to use a darker theme. Speed didn’t really give or take anything from the table. It was as you would expect, a very vanilla android UI as is to be expected from most AOSP ROM’s. As such though, the feel of the UI was nicely done. I didn’t experience any “lag” or chunkiness as I swiped up and down or left and right and in fact…I enjoyed it a bit. It felt like Omni hit smoothness just right! Next up on our list: Thermals and Battery Performance.

Thermals and battery

Too hot, hot damn.

Thermals were not phenomenal, even as far to go as sub par. In moderate use (Wifi, LTE, Bluetooth, Text and browsing the internet) I was achieving around 50 ºC! This was a shock when I was just about burning myself when I touched the screen.

With heavy use I got to about 70 ºC, heavy use was: Wifi, LTE, Bluetooth, Text, Gaming, Charging, Browsing and leaving every app open. Not unheard of, but 70 is still quite hot. With the screen off things often cooled to about the usual 30-40 and not anything too interesting…sorry guys, no exploding of my phone today!

You’ve got me all charged up baby.

Battery Performance was incredible! Phenomenal would better describe the performance I saw. To give you an idea of how little this ROM affected my battery? It took up 2% of overall battery life…an entire ROM only effecting 2% was quite amazing. Much better than my past experiences (Upwards of 14%). With moderate usage (detailed above) I achieved around 5.5 hours of SOT. Heavy usage dropped it to about 4 hours. This was about average SOT but please do note that I keep almost all my apps running in the background. I would most likely achieved further SOT by closing my apps (With the Handy OmniSwitch!).

Overall Thoughts

You can discover everything you need to know about everything by looking at your hands – Jaden Smith

OmniROM in my experience was a joy to use, I frequently used the provided features and I actually looked forward to the frequent updates. Omni provided an experience where I could do anything I wanted to with no one telling me that I couldn’t CoughOnePlusOne RMA Cough.

I liked every minute with Omni and I never found one, not even one bug. Overall every nightly is stable and I enjoyed OmniROM so much as far to say that I will be keeping it as my daily driver!

Conclusion

OmniROM has made a very well made ROM, it was a joy to use. While it may not be for anyone worried about thermals it does provide a nice range of features and damn good battery life. I’ve enjoyed OmniROM just as much..even maybe a little bit more than I enjoy seeing the Victoria’s secret Angels show (which, mind you is quite a lot). Omni can cater to anyone and I have no doubt that you will find some joy in using it too.